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(Passion & Romance)
A fascinating blend of historical melodrama and the emotionally direct “realist” style, Adriana Lecouvreur is a raging tale of jealousy and vengeance set in elegant rococo Paris. The opera features extravagant lead roles for two women in love with the same irresistible hero, played by Plácido Domingo, who returns to the role that launched his Met career 40 years ago. Long considered a connoisseur’s choice, Adriana Lecouvreur encapsulates the great Italian tradition of star-driven lyric theater.
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(Passion & Romance; Real People, Real Problems)
The world’s most popular opera is an inexhaustible treasure trove of genuine feeling, a revelation in music of the details that make up the human experience in modern times. Presented at the Met in Franco Zeffirelli’s ingenious production—which still draws gasps and applause more than 25 years after its premiere—La Bohème remains an essential operatic experience.
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(Passion & Romance; Real People, Real Problems)
This double bill of one-act powerhouse operas packs the ultimate punch, telling the stories of two men driven to desperation by love, jealousy, and shame. With music of powerful and unadorned emotional impact and irresistible melodies like the orchestral intermezzo in Cavalleria Rusticana and the tenor’s tragic “Vesti la giubba” in Pagliacci, these lyric masterpieces retain all their dramatic power to shock and enthrall audiences as they did when they were first produced.
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(Vocal Fireworks; Fantasy & Legend)
The timeless story of Cinderella gets the deft and sly touch of Rossini’s sparkling genius in this charming opera. Its buoyant score, with intricate ensembles, graceful solos, and a dazzling solo finale for the diva, is guaranteed to thrill fans of vocal acrobatics. At the same time, the composer’s masterful character-painting makes the fairy-tale figures come to vibrant life.
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(Fantasy & Legend; Madness & Obsession; New Visions)
Hector Berlioz’s genre-transcending imagination transforms the legend of the old philosopher who trades his soul for one moment of perfect bliss, creating a dramatic experience almost too hallucinatory to be realized on the live stage. The Met’s new production by acclaimed theater artist Robert Lepage makes use of innovative multimedia technology to take this extraordinary work to levels of visual magic rarely encountered before. Berlioz’s score, mystifying to his contemporaries, still retains a sense of what it was called a century and a half ago the “music of the future.”
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(New Visions)
Among the most notable operatic successes of the young 21st century, this provocative examination of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb addresses scientific, ethical, and personal issues on a scale few stage works aspire to. With a sensuously beautiful yet contemporary score that has won admiration from a wide range of enthusiasts, crossing boundaries of “traditional” and “avant-garde,” Doctor Atomic is one of the most significant new works to expand the definition of opera in recent decades.
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(Passion & Romance; Madness & Obsession)
Mozart’s masterful comedy-drama about the legendary womanizer, Don Juan, is as ravishingly beautiful as it is psychologically insightful. Often called the consummate opera, it brings the ancient legend to life in ways that still resonate strongly two centuries after its creation. The timeless score encompasses the entire range of human characters and emotions, from the buffoonish to the noble, the vulgar to the sublime.
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(Vocal Fireworks)
All the frothiness of Donizetti's witty score can’t hide the anguish of true love in this delightful yet emotionally resonant comic masterpiece. A colorful mélange of vocal styles, from bouncy patter songs and lively ensembles to some of the most gorgeous solos ever composed for the human voice (among them the tenor’s romanza “Una furitva lagrima”), this enchanting opera continues to surprise, seduce, and amuse audiences.
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(Passion & Romance)
Tchaikovsky’s sweeping depiction of impossible love is set amid all the pathos and pageantry of Imperial Russia. Dance music for every kind of character, from peasants to nobility, is contrasted with moving solos such as the soprano’s great letter scene and the tenor’s heartbreaking farewell to life. An engrossing and insightful drama, Eugene Onegin uses a lushly romantic score to present adult relationships in all their complexity.
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(Passion & Romance)
Opera’s singular ability to convey extreme drama is on full display in Ponchielli’s amazing emotional tour de force, a perfect example of elaborate Italian opera at its incandescent best. La Gioconda features six major roles, covering all voice types from soprano to bass, each with its own stunning aria. Matching its grand musical scale, the opera is presented at the Met in a colorful historic production.
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(Passion & Romance; Vocal Fireworks; Women on the Edge; Madness & Obsession)
This classic of the operatic stage has captivated audiences from its premiere to the present day with its unforgettable portrait of a woman torn apart by conflicting loyalties and emotions. Donizetti’s deceptively beautiful score, presented in Mary Zimmerman’s hit production, which opened the Met’s 2007–08 season, seduces the audience into a world of shadows, phantoms, and lethal madness.
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(Passion & Romance; Women on the Edge; Real People, Real Problems; New Visions)
Anthony Minghella created his elegant production for the opening of the Met’s 2006–07 season. With its stunning visuals, it accentuates the beauty and timelessness of Puccini’s searing tragedy. Over the course of a century since its first performance, this story of a lovelorn geisha betrayed by an American Navy lieutenant has resonated far beyond the opera house and become an essential part of the cultural conversation.
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(Vocal Fireworks; Fantasy & Legend)
Mozart’s timeless fairy tale is given a dazzling and inventive twist in Julie Taymor’s production, which incorporates enchanting puppetry and whimsical choreography. Telling the story of two distinctly different men embarking on a mystical quest, the score combines unequalled beauty with psychological insight and dizzying vocal pyrotechnics with some of the most beloved and popular tunes in the history of opera. Presented in a family-friendly, abridged English-language version, this Magic Flute makes for the perfect holiday entertainment.
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(Fantasy & Legend)
One of history’s greatest myths is explored in Mark Morris’s production of Gluck’s groundbreaking opera. The tale of the gifted musician who defies death itself to be with his wife has inspired artists of all kinds throughout the centuries. At the Met, this gorgeous, elegant score is brought to life through dance, visual spectacle, and even aerial acrobatics as well as by graceful and alluring vocalism.
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(Passion & Romance; Men Behaving Badly; Madness & Obsession)
Pushkin’s story of an otherworldly old lady who holds the secret to winning at cards and the crazed young man obsessed with wringing it out of her is one of the most remarkable pieces of Russian literature. An innocent young woman and her shady would-be husband round out the unforgettable cast of leading characters in this lyric drama that inspired Tchaikovsky to write some of his most ravishing, dreamlike, and hauntingly memorable music.
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(Vocal Fireworks; Men Behaving Badly)
Verdi’s searing drama of the misshapen outcast who reflects on—and perpetuates—the evil of the hypocritical world he inhabits has enthralled audiences for more than a century and a half. With a perfect union of gripping character insight and a torrent of some of the world’s most glorious melody, Rigoletto remains vital theater whether experienced for the first time or after many times.
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(Fantasy & Legend)
The greatest epic ever created for the stage is a four-day journey of unflagging, white-hot inspiration, unlike any other performing arts experience. Its conception and writing occupied Richard Wagner over a period of two and a half decades. The Met’s legendary production by Otto Schenk, taking advantage of the full range of the company’s unique stage and technical facilities to bring all of the composer’s mythic vision to vivid life, makes its final appearance this season.
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(Passion & Romance; Real People, Real Problems)
The least-known mature work by the world’s most popular opera composer is a sophisticated, charming, and intensely modern look at the conflicting claims of money, society, and true love. The score is a rich lyric trove, including waltzes, a fox trot, and what may be one of the most ravishing tunes this master of melody ever created. The Met’s sumptuous production by Nicolas Joël features opera’s most romantic real-life couple, Angela Gheorghiu and Roberta Alagna, as the elegant Parisian kept woman and the impulsive country boy who challenges her worldly cynicism.
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(Passion & Romance; Men Behaving Badly; Fantasy & Legend)
Best known today as a master of orchestral and chamber music, Antonín Dvorák was also a supreme dramatic composer. As director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City, he made the U.S. his second home during the later years of his life. His operatic masterpiece, Rusalka, is a lyrical, haunting, and utterly romantic tale exploring the clash of the human world with the realm of fairy—the same mystical story that has found expression in such diverse retellings as E.T.A. Hoffmann's opera Undine and today’s The Little Mermaid.
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(Women on the Edge; Madness & Obsession)
Oscar Wilde's outrageous drama of erotica, dementia, necrophilia, and religious inspiration was transformed into an opera of stunning power by the German Richard Strauss. Monumental and intimate at the same time, daringly modern and disturbingly beautiful, this shattering one-act work combines the grandeur of Wagner's epics with the focus and emotional punch of the short Italian verismo operas. An indisputable classic of the operatic repertoire and an extraordinary event whenever it is performed, Salome is that rare example of a "succès de scandale" that retains all the vitality and impact of its initial appearance.
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(Vocal Fireworks; Women on the Edge; New Visions)
This gem from one of the great masters of melody is a benchmark of extraordinary vocalism. A tale of a simple Alpine girl who unwittingly creates a scandal by her nightly excursions as a sleepwalker, La Sonnambula has delighted audiences and fans of vocal virtuosity from Bellini's time to the present. An immediate success in its day, the opera was categorized as semiseria, or "semiserious." Deeper than a comedy, yet more approachably human than the standard tragedy, La Sonnambula reaches its happy conclusion through genuine character development, rather than by intrigues or farce.
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| (Passion & Romance; Women on the Edge; Men Behaving Badly; Madness & Obsession)
The idea of "woman" in all her magnificent facets—from seductive courtesan to austere saint—is thoroughly explored in a new production of this sensuous love story by French composer Jules Massenet. Renée Fleming brings one of her most acclaimed roles to the Met for the first time, paired with Thomas Hampson as the holy man whose attempts to reform and control the errant woman become his own downfall.
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(Passion & Romance; Vocal Fireworks; Real People, Real Problems)
The classic portrayal of the courtesan who is purer than the hypocritical world she inhabits, La Traviata has remained one of Italian opera’s most engaging works since shortly after its premiere. The monumental title role, the wealth of irresistible melody, and the work’s dead-on portrayal of timeless issues keep this poignant drama an evergreen experience.
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(Passion & Romance; Fantasy & Legend; Madness & Obsession)
Featuring what many contend is opera’s most beguiling score, Wagner’s unparalleled Tristan und Isolde is as revelatory today as it was when it premiered a century and a half ago. With James Levine conducting, the work returns to the Met with the vocal forces of Ben Heppner and Deborah Voigt on hand to portray a love strong enough to defeat death itself.
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(Passion & Romance; Vocal Fireworks; New Visions)
Verdi’s disturbing and relentless vision of life out of balance has goaded, irked, and thrilled audiences since it first appeared on the world’s stages 150 years ago, quickly becoming what one critic called "the opera that stands for all opera." With a wealth of melody familiar far beyond the opera house, including the dynamic “Anvil Chorus,” the tenor’s thrilling call to arms, “Di quella pira,” and gripping solos for all four of the leading characters, Il Trovatore’s surefire impact is presented in a new production by David McVicar.
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